A WEEK can be a long time in football and this is one which cannot end soon enough for Orient.

The second week of the season has cast a shadow over the bright start the O's made in the first week.

A 2-1 defeat to Charlton Athletic on Tuesday night at Brisbane Road followed hot on the heels of defeat to Oldham by the same scoreline on Saturday.

It looks as though Orient's campaign has ground a halt. But it can restarted with a win an away at Yeovil Town this Saturday.

Speaking after Tuesday's defeat, O's boss Geraint Williams admitted: “We've let ourselves down as a group.”

He continued: “They say a week in politics is a long time, and it certainly is in football.

“This time last week I came out of the dressing room with two wins in two games and everything was great.

“We'll take it on the chin and regroup and head down to Yeovil for three points on Saturday.”

Williams called on his players to learn from this tough period and to go and apply the lessons against Yeovil at Huish Park.

He was confident that small changes can reap sizeable rewards there.

“If teams were tearing us apart and creating chance after chance we could do something about it, but we've got to cut out these individual errors,” he said.

“It's not like we're being overworked, or the keeper's being overrun. We've conceded two a game and that's not good enough. It's not just about mistakes, we've got to take our chances up front.”

The damage was done on Tuesday by an uncharacteristic laspse by defender Tamika Mkandawire.

With just four minutes left, he misjudged a bouncing ball which led to Dean Burton finding himself through on goal to score.

Earlier, Mkandawire had fired Orient in front on the half-hour mark.

He headed high into the left corner from a free-kick by Charlie Daniels.

But Charlton had equalised on 64 minutes when hot prospect Jonjo Shelven volleyed home from the edge of the box.

Afterwards, Daniels was confident that Orient can halt the slide and return to winning ways.

“Nobody wants to lose three games in a row, nobody wants to lose two games in a row. We'll go down to Yeovil in high spirits and give them a good game.”

He dismissed talk of a confidence crisis at home games.

"We are confident at home as well. We want to make this place a fortress and hopefully we can crack on. It's just mistakes that cost us. We're gutted and we'll look at it later and try to put things right.”

Orient will hope that Sean Thornton is available to help that happen. The influential player twisted his knee against Charlton, and could be a doubt for the Yeovil game.